We want Cantor, We want Cantor!

This week we continue with Part VII of our special 9-part interview with Janet Cantor Gari, the youngest daughter of Eddie Cantor and Brian Gari the grandson of the legendary, “Apostle of Pep”. Janet and Brian will be sharing their stories and special memories about “Banjo Eyes”, Al Jolson, the legendary Bert Williams, Margaret Whiting, Sammy Davis Jr., the upcoming August 2006 Jolson Society Festival on Long Island and their ongoing efforts to keep the memory of Eddie Cantor alive 42 years after his death.

This Week: Jolson Way Dedication Ceremony in New York City

The dedication ceremony for Al Jolson Way sign on Broadway in New York City on Friday August 11^th at 2:00 PM by the legendary Winter Garden Theatre (where Jolson re-defined Broadway on March 20^th, 1911 in “La Belle Paree”).

Jolson redefines Broadway (again) with a little help from our friends

This Week: Tenth Annual Long Island Jolson Society Festival

Jan Hernstat and the International Al Jolson Society present a “Tribute to Al Jolson” in Oceanside, New York on Saturday, August 12th. Guests include the very special Margaret Whiting, Tony Babino, Janet Cantor Gari, Brian Gari, Richard Grudens and Ed Greenbaum.  

Last chance for reservations, email questions to Jan Hernstat at jolsonvp@optonline.net .




Margaret Whiting & Al Jolson

Mister Tin Pan Alley Returns to New York City on August 24th

“This young ‘Master of Tin Pan Alley’ will thrill you as he sings and dances with the snap and pizzazz… Jolie would be proud.”—Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival

Don’t miss the one and only Richard Halpern in a very special musical performance of songs from the 1920s and early 1930s with Richard Danley at the piano on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 8:00pm at the new Joe Franklin's Comedy Club located at 761 Seventh Avenue (50th St.) in New York City. Tickets are $20.00 plus $12.00 food/drink minimum.

Reservation for tickets are available NOW: Call Steve Garrin at: (212) 541-8106.




“I've Gotta Get Back To New York”

A Tribute to Sybil Jason: Warner Brothers' First Kid Star

Although Sybil Jason’s time in the limelight was relatively brief, she enjoyed a remarkable film career including appearing with Hollywood legends including Al Jolson, Shirley Temple, and Humphrey Bogart. 

This tribute will include a rare screening of her 1935 feature "Little Big Shot". Two of Sybil's Technicolor short subjects, "The Changing of the Guard" and "A Day at Santa Anita" (featuring Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler), will also be shown.  Sybil Jason herself will be on hand to answer questions about her career and discuss her recent autobiography "My Fifteen Minutes". 

Miles Krueger from the Institute Of The American Musical will be leading the festivities as we showcase this truly enchanting individual from Hollywood's Golden Age. 

This special event will take place on Tuesday, September 19^th at 7:30 PM at the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Tickets are available to non-members of the American Cinemathique for $9.00.

Uncle Al, “You’re the Cure for What Ails Me”

August Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge

One winner will receive a FREE Al Jolson, “The Singing Fool” T-shirt who can correctly answer the upcoming August Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge.

August Question:

Jolson was known to have taken song writing credits on dozens of songs. As the legend goes, one of these songs landed Jolson as co-author in court for "lifting a melody" from another piece of famous music and resulted in a $25,000 judgement for punitive damages in 1921. Can you name both the song that Jolson made famous as well as the borrowed melody?

Rules: Answers must be e-mailed to Brian@JolsonBlog.com, with “Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge” in the subject line. One winner will be selected at random from correct responses and must be received by 12:00 noon (EST) Tuesday, August 27, 2006. Please include your full name, t-shirt size and mailing address in your response. Only one response accepted per person per monthly Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge. Previous monthly winners are not eligible. These collector edition (white) T-shirts, are provided by AffiniTee LLC, include a vintage color reproduction of a 1928 theatrical program promoting “The Singing Fool” feature film starring the legendary, Al Jolson.

And now a word from our Sponsor:

Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor Limited Edition T-shirts

You will be “Sitting on Top of the World” with these limited edition Tee-shirts. 

These are perfect gifts for collectors of nostalgia and a must have for anyone interested in the legendary Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor. Each t-shirt comes with a FREE matching gift card.

AffiniTee LLC only uses brand new Hanes Beefy-Ts premium 6.1 oz. heavyweight pre-shrunk 100% cotton.  These unique vintage images are applied using a high pressure industrial heat press and professional grade transfers and use a special process for extended wear.

 

This unique T-shirts is available in white or black in adult sizes including small (34-36), medium (38-40), adult large (42-44) and XL (46-48) sizes. Additional sizes including children, adult XXL and XXL are available on a special order basis and are subject to a $3.00 surcharge to prices listed below.

Here’s the Deal

Al Jolson Limited Edition T-shirt: The Singing Fool

This is a vintage color reproduction of a 1928 theatrical program.

Eddie Cantor Limited Edition T-shirt: Tell it to the Judge

This is a vintage two-color reproduction of a 1930s board game.

Moon Rocket Ride Limited Edition Carnival T-shirt

This is a vintage color reproduction of a hand painted tin carnival ride sign.

White T-Shirt:  $20.00 with FREE U.S. Shipping and Matching Gift Card

Black T-Shirt: $22.00 with FREE U.S. Shipping and Matching Gift Card

Pack of 5 gift cards: with envelopes is $10.00 with FREE U.S. Shipping

Pack of 10 gift cards: with envelopes is $18.00 with FREE U.S. Shipping

For additional information, special orders, discounted shipping outside the U.S., payments through Pay Pal, please contact: brian@affinitee.com .

To order please specify style (Jolson or Cantor), quantity, size, t-shirt color (white or black), type (t-shirts or matching gift cards) and your shipping address. Please send checks to:

AffiniTee LLC c/o

Brian Marcus Decker

24 Arverne Road

West Orange, NJ , 07052>

We Want Cantor: Part VII Janet and Brian Gari Interview

 “ I can't think of any other singer who grew up in a household where you would go into your father's studio and have someone like Arthur Schwartz working there. Imagine growing up and hearing Harold Arlen playing piano and singing his songs.” - Margaret Whiting

Brian Marcus Decker:  Brian, both you and your grandfather had special connections to Margaret Whiting.  Can you tell us about this connection?

Brian Gari:  Margaret Whiting was a performer on my grandfather’s radio show and, of course, her father was Richard Whiting who wrote so many wonderful songs, and she was also a key person at Capitol Records, a friend of Johnny Mercer’s and introduced a lot of wonderful songs.  Margaret Whiting has never stopped introducing songs, which is one of the great things about her and there’s certainly … that can’t be said for a lot of the performers from that era.  A lot of them get stuck in doing standards over and over again, but Margaret Whiting has always had an interest in songs, in new songs.  I’ve admired her for that, and she’s found some wonderful songs, people like Rupert Holmes, and I think she’s done a lot of other people’s songs along the way and what happened was as I was driving up Sixth Avenue I saw her crossing 57^th Street, and I stopped her.  I said, ‘Margaret, I’m Brian Gari.’  I don’t even know if I said I was Eddie Cantor’s grandson, but I said, ‘I have songs for you’.  Because I really had a habit of not saying who I was related to, hoping that somebody would, you know, just take me on my own merits, and I said, “I’m a friend of Arthur Siegal.” Arthur Siegal was a great composer and friend of all these people and a friend of Margaret’s.  And she said, ‘Well have Arthur give you my phone number’.  So I did.  I got the phone number from Arthur, called her up and she said she’d see me.  I made an appointment, played her a lot of songs, and the one she chose was this song called “The Coffee Shop”, which was not the song that I really thought she would be interested in doing.  It was a story song, and while it received great ovations in her performance of the song, she did a great job on her recording as well, it was not a typical Margaret Whiting recording and I found that other, you know, common kind of ballads got more attention than my song was getting, but still I had the honor of her recording my songs.

Brian Marcus Decker:  That’s great.  Now she’s also going to be appearing at a Jolson Festival on Long Island on August 12^th.

Brian Gari:  Yes, I booked her for that.  It’s going to be great.

“He was always a co-writer, but according to Henry Tobias, Eddie was never a "cut-in" and that’s what they referred to them as.”  - Brian Gari

Brian Marcus Decker:  Eddie Cantor has taken songwriter credits for about 33 published songs throughout his career.  Jolson had taken a similar amount of co-authorships but most Jolsonographers had felt that his actual contribution was limited at best.  In fact when talking to Joe Franklin, typically he referred to (Jolson), at most he dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on the songs he took credit for. 

In the case of Eddie Cantor there were several songs which he took sole songwriter credits for and the ballads were written with people like Irving Caesar, who was probably most known for ‘Swanee’, Harry Akst, great songs like "Baby Face" and "Dinah", and of course, one of the worst Jolson songs of all times, “Stella”.  As we also know he also worked with the Tobias brothers, Charles, Henry and Harry Tobias, who were cousins related to your mother Ida, and who wrote "Sweet Lovely".  Can you illuminate us a little bit on Eddie Cantor’s contributions to these songs?

Janet Cantor Gari:  Yes, my father had enormous respect for songwriters.  He would never, in a million years, put his name on something that he didn’t actually write, and his comment on that was, “I think that’s stealing”, and he wouldn’t do that.  He admired songwriters so much.  Harry Ruby was one of his closest friends and he just enjoyed working with him.  And Jimmy McHugh was over at the house so often that my sister, Edna, ended up marrying his son.  We loved it when Jimmy would come over.  He was so charming and gentle and he’d play these marvelous songs and it was just … it was a ball when any of them came over to play songs for him because you could see how much he was enjoying it too, and I think Brian has a story about, who was it?  Irving Caesar?  No, no, Gerald Marks, in the middle of the night.

Brian Gari:  Well first I should clarify.  He doesn’t have the sole songwriting credits on songs for the most part.  I’ve seen almost no songs where he was the sole writer of the song.  He was always a co-writer, but according to Henry Tobias, Eddie was never a cut-in and that’s what they referred to them as.  

I had heard recently that Lee Pockriss, who was a wonderful songwriter, wrote “Johnny Angel” and a lot of very big hits.  He wrote for Milton Berle and I think for a TV show.  He would come up with a song, he’d call up Milton Berle, and Milton Berle would say, “Hey I’m coming over to hear the new song that I just wrote”, so Milton Berle got his name on a lot of songs too.  This was a common practice, but fortunately my grandfather did not do that. 

But as far as the Gerald Marks story goes, I will just tell you very quickly.  Gerald Marks was a wonderful songwriter who wrote “All Of Me”’ and only died in recent years, and he had written “Oh Susannah Dust Off That Old Piano” with, well I know it was … Irving Caesar got his name on it as well, but I think Irving Caesar was just the publisher and put his name on it.  I forget who his co-writer was on “Oh Susannah” but there were three writers on there, one of which is Irving Caesar.   But my grandfather got a call from Irving Caesar and Irving Caesar said, ‘We have this great song.  We want to come over and play for you.’  He said, ‘Sure Irving, come on over.’  So Irving came over with Gerald Marks and Sammy Lerner, that’s who the other songwriter is, and those two guys wrote the song.  And they played “Oh Susannah Dust Off That Old Piano”’ and my grandfather loved the song.  Actually I don’t know if he showed enough interest in it right away and Gerald Marks thought he’d blew it by playing it for him and just didn’t do well with it.  But the next morning he got a call at seven o’clock in the morning, which he said was an ungodly hour, and the person on the other end of the phone was Eddie Cantor.  He said, ‘That song you played for me yesterday.  I’d like you to teach it to me.  I’d like to do it on the radio tonight.’  So he said, ‘Oh sure.  You like bacon and eggs?’, and he goes ‘Oh yeah, I love it’.  He said he was nauseous at the thought of it at seven o’clock in the morning.  He said, ‘Come on over.  I’ll have bacon and eggs cooked for you.  Come over to the San Reno. So he came over from 71^st Street and Broadway and walked over to Central Park West at 75^th Street, and he played him the song, rehearsed the song with him, and sure enough he did it that night.

Janet Cantor Gari:  Let me just inject something here.  Never would he have offered him bacon.  My folks were not particularly religious but they never ate “trafe” (non- kosher food from a pig), is that what it’s called.  Never!

Brian Gari:  May it was ham and eggs.  No just kidding.

Subsequent to this interview, I had a follow-up discussion with Brian Gari about several songs that were listed by ASCAP that listed Eddie Cantor as the sole song writer.  These songs include, “Eddie Steady” (sheet music pictured above) , “ Its Great To Be Alive”,  “My Girl Uses Mineralava”, “Talent Is Everywhere”, “That S My Daughter Etc” , “Tips On The Stock Market” and “ Were Just Two Guys Etc”. Even among these six songs, Brian Gari still felt that his grandfather may not have been the sole songwriter.

Part VIII We Want Cantor: Janet and Brian Gari discuss

• Brian, at the age of 12 years, you received a very special letter from your grandfather.  Can you share with us the significance of that letter?

• When did you decide that you were going to become this keeper of the flame, and how did you really just all of a sudden realize that you were going to become the Eddie Cantor archivist?

• What were the origins of the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society?  And people who actually view this weblog, how do they get information about becoming a member?

• Several of your audio video based projects have involved Al Jolson.  Can you share with us some of the history of how those individual projects got launched?  For example, ‘Cantor Meets Jolson’.

This is Brian Marcus Decker and thank you for joining us on the Jolson Blog.  This is the first blog dedicated to the legendary life and musical influences of Al Jolson, The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and Friends and don’t forget to visit us at www.JolsonBlog.com .

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

Four months ago the Jolson and Friends Blog was just an idea and I was not entirely sure if there would be enough viewer interest to sustain this as an ongoing web-based community.  To date I have published over 20,000 words and the blog has been visited over 2,200 times over the last 12 weeks.

I have already made several significant changes to the Jolson and Friends Blog .

• Adding information on upcoming events
• Re-designed the blog and have added several photos per blog entry
• Sending out weekly emails as new content is posted to over almost 200 people in three continents
• Providing editorial commentary and photos to the monthly Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenges

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes.  As of this post, I am promoting the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and other Limited Edition T-shirts and matching gift cards. The sales from these items will help offset the cost of maintaining this blog.

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, I will start publishing twice a month instead of weekly. The next update will happen on September 1, 2006.

I am also working on some additional interviews with two very active members of the Jolson community. I will officially announce these in the September 1, 2006 issue.

To ensure that you are automatically informed about new postings, please enter your email address at the sidebar on the left of this blog page or send an email to my attention, with the subject line “Subscribe”, to brian@JolsonBlog.com .

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